Sophisticated and Stupid Make Mockery of Jail

I promise folks, if you like a good laugh or cry, this will be worth reading in its entirety. On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors allocated $384,000 to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office to upgrade part of the fencing around the jail’s Honor Farm.

“We hope it will have a two-way effect,” Supervisor Ken Vogel said, referring to the need to reduce both the number of inmates escaping the facility and the amount of contraband entering the facility.

The upgrades are an attempt to better equip the facility to house the recent rash of more sophisticated inmates — who are serving longer sentences as a result of state prison realignment — than the Honor Farm was originally intended to house when it was built.

“Due to longer sentences and community safety, (Sheriff Steve Moore) requested and received funds from the CCP to complete security upgrades at the minimum-security facility,” Deputy Les Garcia, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office, said.

The most recent escape occurred April 4, when Jimmy Lee Rayburn, a Lodi man, was missing during an inmate check around 11 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office said.

“This in itself will not guarantee the elimination of escapes,” Garcia said. “However, it is expected to reduce the number of escapes as well as detour deliveries of contraband items.”

FACT: There is no “recent rash of more sophisticated inmates”.

The county jail has been operating under a Superior Court imposed population cap since 1989. Sheriff Moore first took office on January 8, 2007. The misnamed “public safety prison realignment”, or AB-109, took effect on October 1, 2011. Last I checked this is the year 2014. Sophisticated, average and totally stupid inmates have been throwing weapons, dope, cell phones and even themselves over the San Joaquin County “honor” farm fence during Moore’s entire tenure as Sheriff. Anyone who suggests otherwise is either totally misinformed, or smoking some of that famous SJ honor farm dope.

I do applaud Sheriff Moore’s public information officer for acknowledging that “this in itself will not guarantee the elimination of escapes.” Les Garcia just needed to add it will also not guarantee the elimination of dangerous contraband entering the facility either. As someone who has worked for city, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies, (including working at the San Joaquin County Jail and on San Quentin State Prison’s death row), I have had more than my share of experience working with both highly sophisticated and totally stupid criminals. Just like recent escapee Jimmy Lee Rayburn, inmates of all varying intelligence will be free to utilize the areas of the honor farm not covered by the new partial fence to get their dope. One does not have to have any law enforcement or criminal history to figure that one out.

The new partial fence will not be completed for another six months. Too bad Moore did not start this project back in 2007 when he first became sheriff. Maybe by now the public could have a complete strengthened honor farm perimeter fence that would actually prevent escapes and minimize contraband. Imagine how much fencing, surveillance cameras and vehicle sally ports could have been purchased with the $9 million dollars Moore instead decided to waste on fantasy jail design plans.

Again, the court cap has been in place since 1989. AB 109 has been in effect since October of 2011. Obviously “a sudden rash of more sophisticated inmates” was not what motivated Moore to take action just weeks away from the upcoming sheriff’s election. Usually when things are screwed up this bad Moore blames someone else, like the Department of Justice. Maybe this time he should blame Pat WIthrow for not running for San Joaquin County Sheriff years earlier.

So the question remains: Why didn’t Moore respond to this threat before the election? I have a theory. What happens when you are worst team in the NFL? You get to pick the first draft choice. What happens when you have the highest recidivism rate in California, one in four of your fugitives never return to justice and you have a grossly overcrowded jail that inmates routinely escape from? One would think you would be first in line for state grant money. I believe that was Moore’s strategy. What is for sure is that Moore has refused to acknowledge San Joaquin County has access to local low cost solutions such as modular jails that would not require him to chase after $80 million dollar state grants. Moore likes to pretend modular jails in California and elsewhere are like unicorns: they just don’t exist. Too bad for Moore’s campaign and jail strategy Google has a search function.

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About hunter1301

Frank Gayaldo is a passionate promoter of value-added US agricultural exports, who grew up on his family’s vineyard in Lodi, California that he still farms today. His father instilled the importance of farming, serving your country and the virtues of hard work at a very young age. Since retiring from a twenty-year career in law enforcement (city, county, state, federal and self-employed) in 2004, Frank has helped raise global awareness and profitability for several US based agricultural producers. His eclectic experiences have given Frank an extensive network of government, media and business connections that literally spans the globe.
In May of 2006, he organized an international wine tasting event that resulted in Costa Rican President and former Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar Arias, serving three boutique wines from Lodi, California at his presidential inauguration. Frank has been an organizer of several inbound and outbound trade missions to China that have resulted in the purchase of multiple container loads of various California agricultural products, including wine and tree nuts. Over the years, Frank has personally hosted numerous high ranking foreign dignitaries from China, Costa Rica, Japan and Russia at his vineyard home in the spirit of friendship and promoting California agriculture.
Frank’s international successes have received coverage in the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Central Valley Business Times, Honolulu Star Advertiser, Sacramento Bee, Stockton Record, AM Costa Rica, El Financero, Russian Observer, Jing Daily, China Wine News, China Daily and World Journal. Frank serves as a guest columnist for the Lodi News Sentinel. In 2012, Frank was awarded the “Tourism Advocate of the Year” for his work in promoting international opportunities for his hometown. Frank has served as the very first Director of International Business Development for the Lodi District Chamber of Commerce, the past Chairman of the Board of the Visit Lodi Tourism bureau, and as the Executive Director of the Galt District Chamber of Commerce.

Discussion

2 thoughts on “Sophisticated and Stupid Make Mockery of Jail”

Hi everyone:
Concerning Modular Jails will take care of the problem, as long as there is proper security. Calling someone, anyone stupid means there is no hope for them and they will remain in that state as long as they live. You can use other words and get the same results. It is difficult for me to understand the issues that seems so far apart. The honor farm seems to be a main issue these days, what with convicts walking away, the security is very lacked to allow this to happen. Prisoners that walk away with a parole date this year just might fit into the category above. It appears to me that there is one prisoner leaving and two taking his place, the convict that was released will more than likely be a repeat offender to this revolving door policy.

I agree Ed. San Joaquin has the highest recidivism rate in California. We have abandoned all inmate training programs that actually are proven to work. Our perimeter security is horrible. The amount of contraband flowing in and out of the jail is creating bigger problem than the escapes. Our streets will not get safer until we fix the jail problem, period. Even a cow can figure out how to find an open gate that is constantly left open. After seven years we need to stop blaming the cow and instead blame the farmer.